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- Pets
Brock Zilinski
Brock is a male American Eskimo mix. We rescued him from the shelter to be a companion to Bianca, our other dog. Brock is kind of a dumb dog who does a lot of really dumb things. He eats cat poop and throws it up, then eats the thrown-up cat poop and repeats until we realize OMG there's thrown up cat food all over the house and pick it up. He climbs up trees, but sometimes forgets how to get down, so he daringly leaps down, lucky not to injure himself breaking his leg so badly that they had to cut off the top of his femur to get it back into his hip on December 2, 2009.
When you rescue a dog from a shelter, you can't really be sure what you'll get. Sometimes you'll get lucky, and your dog will have been loved to pieces, and sometimes you'll get a dog that's been hurt in the past. Brock's shelter name was "Buster," and after getting to know Brock, I can imagine his previous owner yelling, "Git o'er here, Buster," as he readies a newspaper for the daily beating.
The first time I took Brock out for a walk in the park, it was clear to me that even at two years old, he was not leash trained. A bad sign, to be sure. Then, he started running forward, and when I yelled out, "Brock!" to stop him before the inevitable collar-asphixiation sure to follow this move, he immediately stopped, rolled onto his back and started to cry. Very bad sign.
At home, if my beau was tickling me, and I was laughing, Brock would growl at my man. If I called out his name too loudly, he would whimper and put his tail between his legs. So, our order of business with Brock has been to raise his confidence level, and let him know it's okay to be a dog, because he's not going to get beat under our roof. He doesn't cry much anymore, and he still hasn't quite got fetch down, but he loves to play with his fuzzy friends and strangers who will pet him. Time heals all wounds, and so it is true with doggie wounds, too.
Now, on the matter of him knocking his femur out of his hip: We live in Texas now, where it would be totally socially acceptable to shoot Brock dead for breaking himself...unfortunately fortunately, it is not morally acceptable to us. So, we repaired our lovable dumb dog in the hopes of fifteen more loyal dumb dog years out of him. Initially estimates were for $3,500 for a hip pin, but we decided to go for the femur "repair" at $1000, and we might have even be able to get it done for $350. The problem was not the price so much as finding a reputable doctor to do the surgery. It's one thing to get it done cheap, another to get it done right. So, we travelled a couple of hours to fix this little tree-leaping mutt.
His surgery ended up costing only $488, and that was including the optional post-surgery euphoria-drug-binge I elected for him and a nail trimming plus a full blood workup because I didn't want an adverse reaction to the anesthetic. He's doing just fine now, and still lovably dumb, though not as risky as he used to be.
- ♥
- Brock
- Zilinski
